Friday, August 5, 2011

Mario's Maginot Line

I don’t agree with him, but I can’t blame him either.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart wants to legislate a return to the Bush restrictions on Cuban American travel to avoid what he calls the “abuses” of people who travel too much or carry too much money and goods to loved ones in Cuba.

Senator Marco Rubio goes further.“How do you argue that you’re an exile,” he asks, “when exile is supposed to be people that can’t return for political purposes?”All the back-and-forth to Cuba “threatens the exile status of the Cuban community,” he says.

Well, it certainly demonstrates that el exilio is only part of the Cuban American community.Those who are filling about 50 flights per week to Havana do not consider themselves “exiled” and don’t consider it a political act to get on the plane.

“If he had family like me,” a Miami woman told Channel 51 in reaction to Rep. Diaz-Balart’s initiative, “we were twelve and now two of us are left, and all of them died on me while I was here – then he would not do that, he would not restrict trips to Cuba.”

So why restrict the trips?

Why not say it’s a free country, some will travel and others will not, and that’s ok?

My guess is that it’s not just the contacts and the dollars, and it’s not just about defending the idea and the identity of el exilio.

I think there’s more.What is in danger of unraveling is the whole strategy that el exilio has built so painstakingly over the years to press and contain the Havana government that it abhors.

The core of that strategy is to guarantee that normalization – with the United States, the Cuban American community, and their collective capital – occurs only under certain conditions.The long list of conditions written into U.S. law in 1996 is el exilio’s signal political achievement.

Ignoring all that, many Cuban Americans are undertaking an unconditional normalization of their own as they rebuild connections with their island.

Family visits and remittances are now virtually unrestricted.With Cuba’s opening to small enterprise, many new businesses are starting with seed capital from family abroad.Remittances used to just pay for tía’s cooking oil; now they are family-level investments.

With new rules allowing entrepreneurs to hire employees, this is no longer strictly a micro-enterprise sector.The businesses may get bigger still as Cuba works to add 1.8 million workers to its private sector by 2015.New rules will allow formation of private cooperatives, which will amount to medium-sized service, repair, and light manufacturing businesses.

Remittances are one way to support these new businesses.The Cuban government might come up with more formal ways to accept foreign capital in this growing sector, depending on how serious it is about its desire to expand foreign investment.

Then there’s housing.The government has promised new policies by the end of the year to allow simple sales of homes through streamlined processes.Cuban Americans will participate in this market by financing purchases of homes by their relatives on the island – perhaps with room enough for those from Miami to visit, or to retire.

New policies to expand Cuba’s housing stock have been promised but not yet defined.Ideas include facilitating construction by private entities, and increasing supplies of construction materials to the public.Cuba could even enlist foreign investors in new residential construction.Depending on price, potential buyers would include Cuban nationals, foreign businesses or residents, or Cuban Americans seeking a place for themselves, or for family in Cuba.

That last idea sounds far-fetched, I’ll admit.

But one has to wonder what Raul Castro had in mind when he spent part of Monday’s speech explaining why Cuba should revise anachronistic consular and immigration norms that affect Cuban émigrés.If rumors are true that foreign nationals who buy resort real estate will be offered something akin to resident status, then a similar arrangement could easily be made for returning Cubans too.

Barriers are breaking down.Concertgoers in Miami are hearing the sounds of their youth performed by bands from Cuba.Cuban hotels and resorts, off limits to Cuban nationals until 2008, now ring with the sounds of Cuban guests.Merchandise bought in Miami is stocking new private retail businesses across Cuba.Visits across the straits are easier, in both directions.

One can imagine a sector developing in Miami that supports businesses in Cuba, owns property indirectly, travels back and forth, and has roots in both places.These Cuban Americans will acquire a material stake in the success of reforms and the health of Cuba’s economy.They won’t want sanctions against their own country because they are bad for their people and bad for property values.

All of this is veering so far off the old script that it’s not even funny.

This new Cuban dynamic is not the “transition” envisioned in the Bush Administration, and it has nothing to do with the conditions and ultimatums imagined by designers of U.S. sanctions.It won’t repeal the embargo, but over time it will make some bargaining chips crumble.And it won’t come from organized political effort, but rather through individuals’ free decisions to relate to their patria and family as they wish, at a time when some new options exist in Cuba.

Cuban American legislators respond by reaching for more sanctions, this time to curtail the freedom of fellow Cuban Americans.Talk about a modelo agotado!

But I can’t blame them.There’s a lot at stake, and it’s all they’ve got.

7 comments:

there is a lot at stake for the pro-embargo faction in support of turning back the travel rules -- continued political influence and economic benefit. Who says the get to determine the definition of exile? And if their anti-Castro stance is suppose to be also pro-Cuban people, it is difficult to think their current position is anything but the worst kind of opportunism, as it has been for decades. they are scared to death of the changes going on in cuba (as your next post points out) and will do anything to make them fail. You may not blame him, too bad, but who the heck gave him the right to determine how much travel is "an abuse" That's the worst kind of dictatorship. Trying to justify it through speculation of the determination of the word 'exile' is disingenuous. It's only about political power, money and the historical fantasy of destroying the regime and returning as conquering heroes. And the Cuban-American community is rejecting that position with their travel tickets. Disappointing you would not lay blame where it rightly belongs.

As with many things in the Cuban American community, it's ironic that on one hand they argue Cubans should be granted automatic residence in the free country of America because they have fled repression, but you are now expected to act and talk a certain way and are chastised and ridiculed if you don't.

Don't forget those 20.000 Cubans that arrive here every year with an Immigrant visa. (Almost 200.000 since 1996) They are the core of the Cubanamerican community now. They are not exiles and they have the right to go back to their country whenever they want as every immigrant.

The problem is simple: MDB says that the regime is crumbling. I think that the 'exilio' is crumbling. And Cubanamericans are becoming what they were before 1959: a community of immigrants.

Sometimes I suspect that a lot of Cubans don't like to be called 'immigrants' because that put them at the same level that everyone else. But it's only a suspicion, right? Right!.

It was Fidel Castro who turned Cubans into exiles, the moment no Cuban who left the island was allowed to return and their exit was classified as "final". So these congressmen want to continue Fidel's policies and want to make sure they control Cubans over here the way the Cuban regime controlled us over there. I say bring down those barriers. Enough of that dictatorial mindset. What these congressmen are defending is their jobs. They also want to have a captive audience or rather, a captive voting block.

In my opinion, the game is about to begin. It's just a question as to who moves first and my guess is that many in the Expatriate land, mostlyFlorida and NJ will start to send copious amounts of money to financeland and business deals. Personally, and I might be a bit prejudice but the Cuban American community have made miraculous strides in becoming the most successful immigrants the USA has ever known. Short period of time and kudos extraordinaire. Take thatto Cuba and transform the countryto where it should be. The educated class in Cuba is ripe forsuccess and change.